%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1436122275091487100%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.%%[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rms_titanic.png]][[caption-width-right:350:''"[[TemptingFate God Himself cannot sink this ship]]."'']]

->''"It seems to me that the disaster about to occur was the event that not only made the world rub its eyes and awake, but woke it with a start. To my mind, the world of today awoke April 15th, 1912."''-->-- '''Jack Thayer''', ''Titanic'' survivor

The RMS ''Titanic'' was a transatlantic liner that sank in 1912, causing approximately 1,500 deaths. At the time of her maiden (first) voyage, she was the largest ship to have ever sailed the seas. Construction started in 1909 in the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, and was completed a few months before the big trip--enough time for rumors to spread about the luxurious White Star Liner being "unsinkable". Then, said ship sets sail for New York, hits an iceberg on the fourth day, and sinks in less than three hours. Its fate has inspired [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_about_the_RMS_Titanic at least 36 movies]], including a [[Film/{{Titanic1943}} Nazi propaganda film]], a [[Film/RaiseTheTitanic giant]] BoxOfficeBomb about raising the wreckage that became a major CreatorKiller and FranchiseKiller, [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfTheTitanic two]] [[WesternAnimation/TitanicTheLegendGoesOn cartoonified]] versions in which EveryoneLives (with a sequel for one of them), and Creator/JamesCameron's 1997 blockbuster ''Film/{{Titanic|1997}}''.

Throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, millions of emigrants wanted to go to America to start a new life, and the mail services in Europe needed a swift and reliable means of transporting hundreds of thousands of letters and packages across the Atlantic. Various ship lines in Great Britain, the United States and eventually Germany would answer the call with large, steam-driven ships, but the most famous of these lines, Great Britain's Cunard and White Star, would be the big dogs, constantly competing against each other for emigrant passenger tickets (the ''real'' bread and butter of the trade, rather than first-class passengers) and the profitable license to carry the mail to and from Britain. Hence the initials ''RMS'' on ships that held that license -- '''R'''oyal '''M'''ail '''S'''teamer.

But in the late 1890s, the Norddeutscher Lloyd and Hamburg America Lines threatened to encroach into Cunard and White Star's competition with the launch and maiden voyages of the ''Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse'' and ''Deutschland'', two liners of unprecedented size, speed (with ''Kaiser'' running at a then-unheard-of speed of 22.35 knots (Just over 41km/h or almost 26mph), and ''Deutschland'' traveling even faster) and luxury. In response, the Cunard Line (that had always placed speed and ''reliability'' as paramount for their ships) produced the 787 and 790-foot long ''Lusitania''[[labelnote:*]]which infamously ended up being torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI[[/labelnote]] and ''Mauretania'' in 1907, with top speeds of over 24 knots, thanks to their four turbine engines (the first class of ocean liners to be exclusively turbine-driven, after the comparative experiment with Cunard's liners ''Carmania'' and ''Caronia'' over the cost-effectiveness of the turbine in 1905) and the largest liners in the world both in physical size and mass (the empty shell of the ''Lusitania'' at launch outweighed the fully outfitted ''Kaiser'' by 2,000 gross tons), as well as among the first to have elevators (or "lifts" as the British know them) for passengers.

White Star, seeing the threat Cunard's new "Greyhounds of the Atlantic" presented to the company, quickly drafted a response. As opposed to Cunard, White Star prided itself on comfort and luxury rather than pure speed (as that tended to come at the cost of passenger capacity, and resulted in a tendency to vibrate uncomfortably). Part of this was granting modest luxuries to third-class, which included linens, silverware, waiters who brought their food, and free postcards on their menus, so that they could praise White Star to their friends and relatives back home. As such, they sought to build two, possibly three, liners that were at least ninety feet longer than the ''Lusitania'' and ''Mauretania'', and by far more luxurious than both together.

The answer was the ''Olympic''-Class of ship: 52,000 ton, 882-foot long superliners with the capacity for 3,000 passengers and crew, ''three'' lifts in first-class and one for second-class, and two reciprocating high-pressure engines for the two "wing" propellers, and a low-pressure turbine for the smaller, central propeller, increasing cost-effectiveness in steam economy by reusing steam wasted by the reciprocating engines. For luxury, the ships boasted promenade decks for each class, whose cabins for third and second class were just as good as second and first-class cabins on other ships, and the first-class rooms were just as splendid as any suite at the best hotels in the world, with the most expensive suite of cabins (yes, ''suite of cabins'') went for hundreds of thousands of American dollars in 2017 money, with private baths for more first class cabins than any other ship afloat (even as late as the 1930s most ships still required even the higher-paying passengers to share bathing facilities like in a college dorm.) As the popular ships of the day had four funnels, a fake was added on the back, which also doubled as a large ventilator for the engineering spaces, reducing the number of ventilator cowls on deck, producing a clean outline, whereas the ''Mauretania'' and ''Lusitania'''s deckhouse roofs, with their multitude of cowls, looked cluttered in comparison.

Safety was also considered in the design: a double-bottomed hull to contain flooding in the event of running aground; fifteen bulkheads that went two decks above the waterline (any two of which could flood with bulkheads above the floodwater to spare that divided the ship into sixteen watertight compartments); in the event of a collision, or in the impractical probability of the first four compartments flooding the ship would still float, acting as its own lifeboat until help could arrive; and above all, in the event of the worst, the ships boasted a new [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davit davit]] design that could hold up to 68 lifeboats, but for various reasons (cosmetics, impracticality, cost, etc.) the number was reduced to 20, which was still four boats beyond the legally required 16 for ships 10,000 tons and over in the British Board of Trade regulations.

'''Impractical''' being the operative word. Certainly, unpredictable things might happen, but as a major passenger tragedy had not befallen any White Star ship in some forty years, there was little reason for anyone in the shipping industry to be overly concerned beyond academics.

And so it became known in the shipbuilding world that the ''Olympic''-Class were "''practically'' unsinkable", and the press at large censored out the "practical" part and simply deemed them "Unsinkable," and the public bought it and ran with it. After all, in an age where men were flying, and one person communicating with someone else on the other side of the world in real time, and horses were losing buyers to the horseless carriage, the idea of a ship that could not be sunk was hardly unimaginable.

And so the first ship, ''RMS Olympic'', set sail in 1911, and the response was so successful that White Star ordered a third ship, ''Britannic'' (the urban myth that she was to be named "Gigantic" and renamed after the disaster is just that, ''Gigantic'' was a joke bandied about by the workers at Harland and Wolf as a hopeful potential name for all new ships).

It was in this environment that the middle child, ''Titanic'', rose to prominence. On her maiden voyage, starting at Southampton, England and Cherbourg, France on April 10th before going off to Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, she was loaded with not only hundreds of emmigrants from both the Continent and the British Isles, but some of the wealthiest aristocrats, by title or by position, on both sides of the Atlantic. John Jacob Astor IV, heir to the Astor Railroad fortune and his barely 19-year old bride Madeleine were returning home from their extended honeymoon.[[note]](and to wait out the scandal involving JJ's divorce and marriage to a younger woman... and to ensure that their unborn child was born on American soil).[[/note]] Also on board were the Strauses, Isidor and Ida, co-owners of the world-famous Macy's Department Store in New York, Denver socialite Margaret "Molly" Brown and Archibald Butt, a friend and advisor to President UsefulNotes/WilliamHowardTaft, along with scores of other members of the 1912 rich and famous. White Star was also represented on board, with managing director J. Bruce Ismay, Harland & Wolff's head designer Thomas Andrews, and nine lucky[[note]] Well, it ''seemed'' lucky at the time. All nine were later killed.[[/note]] builders from Harland & Wolff known as the "Guarantee Group" traveling to observe the general performance of the new ship.

And at the helm, was Captain Edward John Smith, "The Millionaire's Captain," and White Star's favorite officer, who took out every new ship of the line on her maiden voyage for the past decade and a half. At the age of 63, Smith planned to retire. If not after this voyage on ''Titanic'', then certainly after ''Britannic'''s in the spring of 1915. While the majority of the crew were hired at Southampton in the days prior to the voyage, which was a common practice at the time, Smith's officers were a handpicked collection of White Star's best.

''Titanic's'' maiden voyage almost ended in disaster just as it was starting. As the ship was leaving Southampton, its powerful suction pulled a nearby vessel, the ''SS City of New York'', from its moorings and into ''Titanic's'' path. Captain Smith quickly ordered ''Titanic's'' port propeller into reverse, and the resulting wash pushed the ''New York'' away from ''Titanic'', giving several tugs time to usher it safely away. The near collision still delayed the start of ''Titanic's'' journey by an hour. When the maiden voyage finally got underway, the first three days were calm and without incident.

But the winter of 1911-12 was unusually warm, and the threat of icebergs breaking off from the glaciers of Greenland and northeast Canada was more dire than usual, with a thicker density of icebergs and pack ice farther south than usual. ''Titanic'''s wireless operators received a number of ice warnings, but due to the nature of their employ, only sent a few to the bridge. On the day of the disaster, the operators were trying to clear a large backlog of messages that had accumulated as their equipment had broken down the day before. This made Senior Wireless Operator Jack Phillips a bit irritable, and when nearby ship ''Californian'' tried to warn them of an ice field right in their path, Phillips told him to shut up, as the ''Californian'' was so close they were interfering with ''Titanic's'' signal to the mainland (the ''Titanic'' also had much more sensitive radio equipment than the ''Californian''; the message nearly [[EarAche blew out Phillips' ear drums]]). The operator on the ''Californian'' then turned in for the night and shut down his equipment, and thus the one ship within 15 miles of the ''Titanic'' would not hear of the disaster until morning.

On Sunday, April 14th, at 11:40 PM ship's time, the majority of passengers and Captain Smith had gone to bed. It was a new moon and the sea as smooth as glass, highly unusual for the typically swell-filled North Atlantic. These circumstances made the prospect of finding icebergs almost impossible, without the light of the moon or the whitewash of waves breaking at the waterline of the iceberg. Normally, the lookouts would be equipped with binoculars, but a last-minute change to the command structure resulted in the binoculars being misplaced at Southampton. So it's a testament to Frederick Fleet's eyes and dedication that he saw the iceberg when he did (really more of a black mass where starlight ''wasn't''), his co-watchman Reginald Lee ringing the bell as Fleet telephoned the bridge.

The officer on duty on the bridge, First Officer Murdoch, saw the iceberg too, and ordered "Hard to Starboard" (technically to Port, or a Left Turn, but ''Titanic'' used tiller commands and so the directions were reversed), and ordered all of the engines full astern. Murdoch then ordered the turn reversed and engines stopped, bringing the bow back towards the iceberg. While seemingly counterintuitive, this order, known as "porting around," was the standard collision-avoidance maneuver for the time, reducing the ship's speed while swinging the stern away from the hazard (as an analogy, picture driving a car and having to slow down and change lanes to avoid a hazard in your current path). Simply turning away could mean presenting the ship's entire side to be ripped open as her existing momentum would stretch the turning radius out to be farther than that of the ordered turn.

However, in the heat of the moment, Murdoch forgot a vital factor in ''Titanic'''s turning ability: The turbine could not go in reverse, so in a full-astern order, it, and the center propeller directly in front of the rudder, simply stopped, and with the two wing propellers turning in reverse, the water flow over the rudder was greatly reduced, rendering the rudder practically useless. He likely ordered it to reduce speed in case they could not turn in time[[note]]The iceberg was sighted a quarter of a mile away and it took thirty seconds for the full tiller command to be implemented[[/note]], but it has been speculated by some that had Murdoch ordered only the port engine reversed, or simply left the engines alone, ''Titanic'' could have either missed the iceberg entirely, or collided with greatly reduced damage. This is disputed, and porting around was the standard collision-avoidance action for a reason. But what was done was done, and less than forty seconds later, ''Titanic'' hit the iceberg.

Most of the passengers never noticed the collision, or felt little more than a slight rumbling bump. The first sign to the passengers that something was amiss came minutes later, when the engines were suddenly stopped. Thomas Andrews, the designer, never even knew of the accident until Captain Smith ordered him to go down below to examine the damage. After midnight, Andrews returned with the news, and it wasn't good. ''Six'' compartments had been breached: the forward peak, all three cargo holds, and boiler rooms 5 and 6. ''Titanic'' could float with any two compartments, or the four foremost compartments, flooding. Any more, and the ship would sink. The engineers were able to fix Boiler Room 5's two or so feet of damage and began pumping, but for every gallon the engineers pumped out, ''Titanic'' took on 15 more. Andrews informed the captain that ''Titanic'' would sink in less than two hours.

Over those next two hours, the crew rushed to launch the lifeboats while Senior Wireless Operator Jack Phillips worked frantically to get the word out, right up to the very end. The closest ship to respond to the distress call, the Cunard Line's ''RMS Carpathia'', instantly rushed to ''Titanic's'' aid,[[note]]In fact, Captain Arthur Rostron [[TimTaylorTechnology ordered all non-essential power systems shut off and rerouted to the engines]], giving ''Carpathia'' -- whose top speed was only 14 knots (16 mph) -- a burst of energy that brought her up to 17.5 knots (20.1 mph) that fateful night.[[/note]] but was four hours away. The lifeboat launchings were extremely chaotic and disorganized. ''Titanic'' had never had a lifeboat drill and only had enough boats to accommodate barely half those on board. Captain Smith, upon realizing the scope of the emergency, gave vague orders and became so disconnected that he didn't bother to find out if they were being carried out. His command of "Women and children first" was interpreted by Murdoch to mean "Women and children ''first'', let men in if there's room," while Second Officer Lightoller took it to mean "Women and children ''only''." Neither officer was informed of the rated capacity of the lifeboats, and erred on the side of caution. Furthermore, the ship did not appear to be in immediate danger, which made passengers reluctant to leave it on a small rowing boat in the middle of the night. All of which meant that boats built for 65 were often lowered only half-full.[[note]]One lifeboat, #1, had only 12 people in it. All told, there were some 400-500 empty berths on the lifeboats.[[/note]] Due to the chaotic nature of the evacuation, and the limited time in which they were launched, it has been speculated that even had there been enough lifeboats for all on board, only a small additional number would have been saved. The last boats were launched less than ten minutes before the ship went under.

At 2:20 AM local time, ''Titanic'' broke apart and slipped beneath the waves, and the some-odd 1,500 men, women, and children left behind died of hypothermia in the 28°F (-2°C) water within half an hour. Only one lifeboat went back to look for survivors, and only found six. This is another point of contention about the disaster, but it's usually agreed that many desperate swimmers trying to climb into the lifeboats could have resulted in them capsizing, dooming even more survivors. With little to do but wait, the survivors were picked up by ''RMS Carpathia'' at dawn. Within hours, news of the disaster started to spread to newspapers across the globe. However, it would not be until the ''Carpathia'''s arrival in New York three days later that the true scope of the sinking was clear.

After the disaster, new legislation was passed on both sides of the Atlantic to ensure that such a tragedy couldn't happen again, and the ''Titanic'' became another piece of pop culture until 1985, when a joint French and American team found the wreckage, and the following year the Woods-Hole Oceanographic Institute sent a team, lead by discoverer Dr. Robert "Bob" Ballard, to dive and photograph the wreck.

Today, the wreck lies in two big chunks, with smaller chunks consisting of the middle section over a 15mi[[superscript:2]] area. The bow is mostly intact and still resembles a ship, whereas the stern is a jumbled mess of decking and hull plating.[[note]]This is due to the way both sections reached the bottom. The bow, streamlined and filled with water, gently descended until it struck the ocean floor, whereas the stern, mostly filled with air, violently imploded on its way down.[[/note]] The wreck itself is being consumed by iron-eating bacteria, and, assuming that those don't finish her off, recent sonar scans show that dunes that dwarf the ship are slowly being blown her way by the currents, ensuring that the whole site will eventually be buried.

There is much controversy concerning the near-constant dives on the wreck and the issue of salvaging artifacts from the site, and the damage the efforts do to the wreckage (the team that retrieved the ship's bell destroyed the crow's nest while doing so, which until then had been virtually whole and intact; and on one of the dives with the Russian Mir, a sub accidentally damaged a deckhouse with its propeller). Some equate the salvaging with GraveRobbing, and that the ship should be left to ([[AccidentalPun no pun intended]]) rust in peace. Others claim that such comparisons are invalidated by the treatment of similar legendary disaster sites such as Pompeii, and that it is important to document the wreck site as clearly and thoroughly as possible while the ship still exists.

Current international legislation prohibits tampering with the wreck of the ship itself, but the debris field containing thousands of artifacts ranging from pots and pans to shoes to tableware to dolls to wreckage is more or less free rein for the Salvor-in-Possession ''Titanic'', Inc. (now Premier Exhibitions) to collect items from, which can be seen in museums and traveling exhibitions the world over.

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Works Set aboard RMS ''Titanic'']]Too many to list here, but there a few noteworthy works:----* ''Saved from the Titanic'' (1912): The film was made shortly after the disaster. It starred actress and model Dorothy Gibson, who ''actually was on the ship'' and ''wore the clothes she wore on the ship'' when making the movie. The prints were destroyed in a fire in 1914 and the film is lost; Gibson was so traumatized by the sinking that she retired from show business after the movie.* ''In Night and Ice'': (1912): Originally titled ''In Nacht und Eis'', an early example of a "mockumentary," reenacting the ship's crossing, iceberg collision, and sinking aboard the German luxury liner ''Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria'', along with some laughable by today's standards model footage shot in the Baltic Sea. Unlike the Dorothy Gibson film made a few months prior, this film survives. A copy was rediscovered in 1998 and preserved by the German Film Archives.* ''Atlantic'' (1929): A very early talkie and one of the first sound British films. The film is a very loose adaptation of the sinking, based on a contemporary play titled ''The Berg''. Due to a threatening letter from White Star Line, the original studio that released the film changed the ship's name (and subsequently the film's title) to a fictional "SS Atlantic." The film, while a bit primitive and sloppily made on a low budget, can be seen as a very early prototype of the DisasterMovie sub-genre, establishing various tropes and cliches that would be imitated by subsequent films in the decades to follow. Like many talkies of the time, this film was shot four times with four different casts in four separate languages; English, German, French, and Italian. This was common before dubbing came to popularity as a more cost-effective way to release sound films internationally.* ''Film/{{Titanic|1943}}'': A 1943 melodrama made in Nazi Germany as an anti-British propaganda piece. However, the film was promptly censored and withdrawn after scenes of disaster and panic turned out to be a hot bed for UnfortunateImplications and it was banned in Germany by Joseph Goebbels. Taking cues from the earlier 1929 version, this film further established and cemented many conventions and cliches that were followed up by future ''Titanic'' films, like interweaving a fictional love story amongst real historical events and portraying J. Bruce Ismay as the villain. It also takes some weird liberties with the facts for the sake of propaganda--in this film ''Titanic'' is the fastest ship in the world, John Jacob Astor is plotting a hostile takeover of White Star Line and Ismay pushes Capt. Smith to go faster than necessary in an attempt to raise White Star stock prices to fight off the takeover. (Making the heroic ship's officer a fictional German doesn't help.) The special effects, using a model 6 meters long, were good enough to be reused in ''A Night to Remember'' however. * ''Titanic'': "They just didn't care" would be a good way to describe this 1953 Clifton Webb and Creator/BarbaraStanwyck movie, which concerns itself more with a fictional custody battle between two catty first class passengers than the actual ship and the subsequent disaster.* ''Film/ANightToRemember'': (1958) A docu-novel and later film that has aged fairly enough, and even today is considered one of the more accurate portrayals of the sinking in film (Pre-1985 that is).* ''SOS Titanic'': (1979) a British/American co-production miniseries using the same docudrama template as ''A Night to Remember'', but covering the ship's entire voyage. Its historical authenticity is marred by lousy special effects, recycled stock footage from the 1958 film and some wildly inaccurate filming locations, which consisted mostly of the very art-deco liner RMS ''Queen Mary'' and a couple of luxury hotels in England. The fact that many actors are wildly miscast and look distinctly like they're from TheSeventies doesn't help the matters either. The film was aired on American television in its entire 144 minute length (excluding commercials) and was released theatrically in Europe as a 100 minute feature.* ''Film/RaiseTheTitanic'': (1980) Based on the Creator/CliveCussler novel of the same name. Against the backdrop of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, a team led by Dirk Pitt sets out to find and raise the ship, believing a [[{{Unobtainium}} rare mineral]] to be on board. The film was one of the most notorious [[BoxOfficeBomb financial and critical flops]] of the 1970's/1980's, sunk producer Lew Grade, the director of the movie, and ITC Entertainment, and led to an embargo from Cussler regarding his novels until ''Film/{{Sahara|2005}}'', which had an even worse reaction from him. This is the final film about the ''Titanic'' made and released before the wreck was discovered.* "[[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0048/0048_01.asp Titanic]]": This 1983 ComicBook/{{Chick Tract|s}} is set aboard the famous ship, and concerns a man named Chester who wants to get rich and is hostile towards efforts to convert him to Christianity.* ''Titanica'': (1992) An IMAX documentary by Stephen Low and originally narrated by Creator/LeonardNimoy, this was also the second ever IMAX exclusive film, done when the format was in complete infancy. This film features how the deep-dives to the ''Titanic'' work, and also features interviews from survivors Frank Goldsmith and Eva Hart. This is also the first of several films featuring the ''Titanic'' to also feature the research vessel ''Akademik Mstislav Keldysh'', which is one of the primary vessels dealing with the ''Titanic'' wreck and would be featured again in both of James Cameron's ''Titanic'' films: the 1997 smash, and Disney's ''Ghosts of the Abyss''.* ''Series/{{Titanic|1996}}'': (1996) Another "they just didn't care" version (this time a TV miniseries) which features historical inaccuracies in nearly every scene, removing several figures from the sinking, and have completely out-of-left-field scenes such as Creator/TimCurry raping someone.* ''VideoGame/TitanicAdventureOutOfTime'': (1996) A video game (yes, ''Titanic'' has even inspired a video game) about a British agent who had a failed mission aboard the ship. After he's killed in the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII London Blitz]], he's somehow sent back in time to the night of the sinking and given a chance to complete his mission, with the possibility of changing history. Notable for its graphics capturing every detail of the ship, to the point that several documentaries of the late 90s used the game to depict the sinking. * ''Film/{{Titanic|1997}}'': (1997), Creator/JamesCameron's multi-billion blockbuster that launched Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio and Creator/KateWinslet into super stardom. Unlike other films, which generally use an existing ocean liner for the set, Cameron worked to literally build the ship itself and get every possible detail right, from the layout of the boat deck to the patterns on the fine china. Currently rivals ''A Night to Remember'' as the most accurate depiction of the sinking, as it includes the ship visibly breaking in two. The second of at least 3 films about the ''Titanic'' to use the research/submersible vessel ''Akademik Mstislav Keldysh''; like ''Titanica'', deep dives are shown in detail at the very beginning of the movie, and the main character retells her story on board the ''Keldysh''.* ''WesternAnimation/TitanicTheLegendGoesOn'': ''One'' of the cartoonified versions, featuring a gender-flipped version of the 1997 film's romance, [[StockFootage recycled animation]], and '''a rapping dog'''. ''Seriously''. Also ripped off a bunch of Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon films in the character designs.* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfTheTitanic'': ''Another'' cartoonified version, featuring another ripoff romance, singing mice, a giant octopus who saves the ship, [[CriticalResearchFailure and everyone lives]]. And it has a sequel, ''In Search of the Titanic''. You can't make this stuff up. All three movies earned scathing reviews from WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic, with Website/{{Youtube}} personality WebVideo/AniMat giving ''The Legend of the Titanic'' his "Seal of Garbage".* And from [[Series/SaturdayNightLive SNL's]] TV Funhouse, ''Titey'', the purported [[http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/tv-funhouse-titey/2870442?snl=1 Disney version]].* ''Ghosts Of The Abyss'': (2003) A follow-up by James Cameron on the ''Titanic'' (this one was done by Creator/{{Disney}} rather than Paramount or Fox), once again operating from the ''Keldysh'', which was his base of operations for ''Titanic 1997'' regarding dives (and was featured in the film) and had previously been the base of operations for ''Titanica'' 5 years earlier. This one also had a dive on TooSoon/SeptemberEleventh, which got woven into the film.* ''Titanic'': A 2012 miniseries by Julian Fellows to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking. It's essentially "''Series/DowntonAbbey'' at Sea." Aired in four parts, the series pretty much rehashes all the other fictional accounts of the ''Titanic'' disaster, filled with fictional characters, melodramatic intrigue, painful historical inaccuracies, and shallow caricature portrayals of actual historical persons onboard. It is also noted for a bizarre "Rashomon" style narrative.* ''Titanic: Blood and Steel'': A 2012 12-part TV series also made to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking, which focuses on Titanic's construction at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland. Filled with {{Foreshadowing}} as to Titanic's eventual fate, the series follows metallurgist Dr. Mark Muir as he helps build the Titanic in the face of White Star's ([[CriticalResearchFailure unsubstantiated]] [[RealityIsUnrealistic accusations]] [[VindicatedByHistory of]]) cost-cutting measures, Belfast's class, political and religious divides, and his own past with the city.* ''Film/SavingTheTitanic'' deviates from the usual ''Titanic'' formula by dramatizing the efforts of the engineering and boiler room crews on board as the ship sank.* ''SOS: The Titanic Inquiry'' is a 2012 BBC TV movie which is a bit of a variant as it is a dramatization of the British Board of Trade inquiry of the disaster in which the crew of the ''Californian'' were grilled about their actions that night.* ''Titanic: Honor and Glory'': An upcoming video game due for release in 2018. An Oxford graduate is accused of a crime he didn't commit and follows the perp aboard the first ship out of Southampton, the ''Titanic''. When it starts sinking, he only has less than three hours to solve the case and clear his name. Besides the story arc, the game is also intended to serve as a learning tool. The creators have been conducting exhaustive research into the sinking, even creating a [[https://youtu.be/rs9w5bgtJC8 real-time video]] of the sinking using the game's engine. [[/folder]]

[[folder:References in Other Works]]* The ''Titanic'' is what set off the plot of ''Series/DowntonAbbey'': Lord Robert's two closest heirs were on board and died in the sinking, leaving the next possible heir to his title and estates (and more importantly, his wife's money) a distant cousin who works as a solicitor.* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' Christmas special "[[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned Voyage of the Damned]]" takes place on board a replica of the ship, which was built by an alien race to experience "primitive cultures." Naturally, it meets with disaster, though it's closer to ''Film/ThePoseidonAdventure'' than the actual disaster or any of the works based on it. * Chapters 35 and 36 of ''VideoGame/GardensOfTime'' revolve around the Titanic.* The heroine of the Creator/DanielleSteel novel ''No Greater Love'' takes charge of her younger siblings after surviving the disaster but losing her parents and fiance.* The VisualNovel ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' is set on the restored ''Britannic'' (though it's identified by its UrbanLegend name "Gigantic"). [[spoiler:Actually, while a backstory event takes place on the actual restored ''Britannic'', the events of the game take place in a replica built in a building in the desert of Nevada.]] References to the ''Titanic's'' sinking as well as the ''Britannic's'' own are prevalent, including correctly identifying the ''Carpathia'''s role.* ''From Time to Time'', sequel to ''Literature/TimeAndAgain'', has the protagonist aboard the Titanic to try to [[spoiler:prevent the collision. Another time agent's actions cause it.]]* In ''Literature/{{Millennium}}'' (written in 1983, [[{{Jossed}} two years before the wreck was found]]), co-protagonist Louise says the wreckage was never found because the whole ship was brought forward in time.* ''WesternAnimation/WhereOnEarthIsCarmenSandiego'': During their first clash ten years before the events of the show, [[KnightOfCerebus Dr. Maelstrom]]'s end goal was to float and steal the sunken ship, while Carmen (an ACME agent at the time) worked frantically to catch up to and stop him before he succeeded. The wreck was mentioned to have been found by Dr. Ballard the day after Maelstrom's arrest.* Lady Marjorie of ''Series/UpstairsDownstairs'' is revealed to have perished in the disaster.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tropes as Applied to the Real Life Event]]* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Lifeboat 13 was pushed backwards by ''Titanic's'' condenser discharge before they could unhook the falls. Meanwhile, lifeboat 15 started down the falls... 13 was nearly crushed before they managed to escape from under 15. * TheAce: ''Titanic,'' as with all White Star ships, had eight senior officers: the Captain, a Chief Officer, and six officers, 1-6. By law, in order to get promoted to command positions in the British Merchant Marine, one had to get a series of licenses, with increasing scope and difficulty. All of ''Titanic's'' officers had to pass the exams to attain those licenses if they were to ever have a shot at promotion. However, all of the officers had failed their exams for at least one license at least once before finally passing, except for one man: William [=McMaster=] Murdoch. * ActionSurvivor: Violet Jessop. Not only did she survive this sinking, she survived a collision aboard the ''Olympic'' and the sinking of the ''Brittanic''.* AgeGapRomance: John and Madeleine Astor, 48 and 19 respectively. The reason they were in Europe in the first place was to attempt to wait out the media frenzy that resulted from Astor's divorce and their age difference, but they decided to go back when Madeleine got pregnant.* AnyoneCanDie: ''Titanic'''s victims ranged from rich and powerful individuals like John Jacob Astor and Major Archibald Butt to humble stokers and greasers. * ArcNumber: Ships are given a specific number in the order of which they are built at a specific yard, and parts for certain ships are stamped with that number to differentiate them from the same or similar parts for other ships. The ''Olympic'' was 400, the ''Titanic'' was 401, and the ''Britannic'' was 433. The 401 stamp is still clearly visible on one of the propeller blades on the stern. This is vitally important evidence in discrediting the UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories that the ''Titanic'' was really the ''Olympic'', scuttled as part of an insurance scam after the latter's accident with the HMS ''Hawke'' the previous year.* BigDamnHeroes: The ''RMS Carpathia.'' The captain and crew pushed their ship's engines to the limit to reach the last known coordinates. Subverted in that they still couldn't get there fast enough to save everyone.* BiggerIsBetter: The ship is often claimed to have been the largest ship in the world. In truth, ''Titanic'' was a mere three inches longer than her sister ship ''Olympic''. However, a last minute decision to add sliding windows on the forward half of the A Deck promenade meant that ''Titanic'' was heavier by about a thousand tons, thus allowing her to claim the title of largest ship.* BlasphemousBoast:** According to legend (i.e. take it with a grain of sea salt), a passenger asked a deckhand if ''Titanic'' really was 'unsinkable.' The deckhand proudly claimed that "God Himself cannot sink this ship." Let's hope that deckhand didn't have money riding on that claim.** According to [[http://www.titanic-whitestarships.com/TandOWSS%20FAQ.htm#Organisations most researchers]], the characterization of the ''Titanic'' as "unsinkable" didn't start until ''after'' it had sunk, when the media started playing it up because it made the sinking even more sensational. The phrase was actually "''practically'' unsinkable", as in "no disaster that we could think of could sink this ship". Titanic just had the bad luck to sideswipe an iceberg, which was a possibility that [[DidntSeeThatComing nobody had thought of yet]]. *** More specifically, Titanic was divided into multiple watertight compartments, and was designed to float with one (or even several) flooded, and most accidents wouldn't flood many compartments (the ''Olympic'', which had the same compartments as the ''Titanic'', once survived being T-boned by HMS Hawke, a ship designed to ram and sink enemy shipping, which opened two adjacent compartments to flooding). The iceberg ripped small holes into ''six'' of the ''Titanic'''s compartments, at which point it became a ForegoneConclusion that she was going down.** Moreover, the safety features which led to the "practically unsinkable" claims were nothing new by 1912. Brunel and Russell's ''Great Eastern'' (launched in 1858) had its hull subdivided into ''40'' watertight compartments, with bulkheads stretching to 30 feet above the waterline.[[note]]Outside New York harbour in 1863, ''Great Eastern'' scraped along some large underwater rocks, which opened a gash nine feet wide across 90 feet of her hull (i.e. worse than that sustained by the ''Titanic'') and made it to New York under her own steam, without anyone actually realizing the ship had been seriously damaged.[[/note]] Numerous ships had already been fitted with the same Stone-Lloyd watertight doors as ''Titanic'', including Cunard's big two, ''Mauretania'' and ''Lusitania''. Stone-Lloyd also claimed that their watertight doors made ships using them "practically unsinkable". The phrase was more like a marketing tool applied generally in the industry. It only entered the popular imagination as a boast unique to ''Titanic'' because it sunk. * BystanderSyndrome:** At the time of the sinking, the wireless operators were not part of the crew, but employees of the Marconi Wireless Company, and thus the main priority of Jack Phillips and Harold Bride was sending and receiving telegrams for the passengers, not concerning themselves with "weather reports." Also, this meant that 24/7 service was not a requirement, as not all ship companies could afford to have two or more operators on every single one of their ships. This changed real quick after the disaster, especially in light of the fact that the ''Californian'' was stopped due to ice not even 10 miles away, and never knew what was happening until the next morning because... their only wireless guy was asleep. ''Carpathia'', the ship that eventually came to the rescue (too late), was not much better, also having only one wireless operator, and in fact narrowly avoided missing out on Titanic's distress signals just as the ''Californian'' had because the operator decided to inform the ''Titanic'' of a routine piece of information literally as he was getting ready to go to bed.** In addition, at the time, iceberg warnings were treated as advisories rather than major hazards. Close calls were not uncommon in the North Atlantic, not to mention head-on collisions were not fatal for many ships.* TheCaptain: Three civilian sea captains who would go down in history in three very different ways:** Edward Smith of the ''Titanic''. A well-accredited old school sea captain, often given at least some of the blame for the ''Titanic'''s accident, fairly or unfairly. He died in the sinking.** Stanley Lord of the ''Californian'', currently the maritime poster boy for BystanderSyndrome, is often blamed for not coming to the ''Titanic's'' aid.[[note]]But Lord did not, as is sometimes asserted, ignore ''Titanic's'' distress rockets; he did not know the ''Titanic'' was in distress, that the rockets his crew observed were distress rockets, or indeed that they were coming from the ''Titanic''. When Lord finally ''did'' learn of the ''Titanic's'' situation the following morning, he took his ship twice through an ice field to aid the rescue effort.[[/note]] In any case, as [[https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/californian-incident.html this article]] points out, it is doubtful that the ''Californian'' could have made much difference due to the limited time and manpower available and the difficulties of rescues at sea. ** Arthur Rostron of the ''Carpathia'', acclaimed as a hero because he ''immediately'' ordered full steam ahead ([[TimTaylorTechnology and then some]]) the instant he got word about ''Titanic'', with only the sheer distance between the ships preventing him from saving hundreds more lives.* CaptainCrash: First [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Smith_(sea_captain) Edward Smith]] was captain of the RMS ''Olympic'' when it nearly destroyed a tugboat that was guiding it into dock. Later on, it collided with a British warship. Then ''Olympic'' lost a propeller blade and she returned to her builder for emergency repairs. Then he was captain of a ship called the RMS ''[[UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic Titanic]]''. ** In fairness to Smith, all of those incidents were relatively minor and involved no loss of life. ''Olympic'' was under compulsory pilotage in the Solent when the collision with the ''Hawke'' happened, and the pilot was officially blamed for it. A number of eyewitnesses actually felt the ''Hawke'' was at fault. * CassandraTruth:** One of the problems commonly pointed out is that the bulkheads weren't sealed at the top. [[https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%BE,_%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80_%D0%9F%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 A visiting Russian engineer]] allegedly pointed the problem in 1909 but was ignored.** Of course, watertight decks have their own problems in an emergency situation, such as what is known as the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_surface_effect Free-Surface Effect]]", where the water sloshes around and pools on one side or the other. If the water gathers in the lower decks, this isn't an issue, as the center of gravity is better at staying where it needs to be. But if the water is higher up, the center of gravity shifts, and the ship capsizes. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdCXDkF0LfA This actually happened to the Normandie when a fire broke out, and the firefighters weren't able to hose off the ship evenly.]] And as the ''Olympic''-Class wasn't being built for wartime use conversion like Cunard's ''Lusitania'' and ''Mauritania'', they didn't need to adhere to the Admiralty's standards for warships, which include watertight decks as well as longitudinal (lengthwise) bulkheads (in fact, those bulkheads did nothing but make Lusitania's sinking ''worse'' by collecting water on one side, rather than letting it evenly flood the interior). Then there's the fact that watertight decks require hatches so that passengers and crew would be able to move about the ship, hatches that could easily be forgotten about during an emergency, such as when the HMS ''Audacious'' struck a mine in 1914 (leading to the loss of that ship). So it's not like White Star and H&W were being arrogant about safety.** The radio operator of the infamous SS ''Californian'' tried to warn the ''Titanic'' crew about the ice that forced his ship to lay adrift for the night, only to be rudely interrupted by Philips (who was busy working the tenous connection with the shore station) shortly before the accident. He then ended his watch and turned in for the night. Unfortunately, ''Californian'' had only one radio operator...** Because of the reputation the ''Titanic'' had as a very safe ship, it took a while for it to sink in that the ship had actually gone down with horrible casualties. There's a story floating around that one passenger on the ''Carpathia'', inquiring about the crew's sudden activity, was told that the ''Titanic'' was sinking and they were going to help her. He went back to his cabin and told his family to be ready to evacuate, because he thought it was more likely that his own ship was on fire than that the ''Titanic'' was going down.** A number of survivors, such as Jack Thayer, reported that ''Titanic'' broke in half before it sank, but were disbelieved. They were vindicated when the wreck was discovered in two main pieces in 1985. * CherryTapping: The iceberg damage. For decades, the accepted wisdom was that only a massive can-opener type gash 300 feet long could have done ''Titanic'' in, even after the wreck was discovered and the hull outside boiler rooms 5 and 6 showed a slit formed by buckled plates. It wouldn't be until 1996 that, with the use of sonar, it was confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt, [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Titanic_side_plan_annotated_English.png that six tiny slits as wide as an adult's hand]], formed as the rivets snapped and buckled hull plates separated, were all that were needed to lay ''Titanic'' low. This theory was actually presented at the inquiries by Harland & Wolff's best naval architects. They noted that reports of the flooding were different in each compartment, meaning each one likely suffered its own unique damage and that the actual damage could be very small. However, the press ignored that and went with the myth of the 300ft gash.* CoolCar: The 1912 Renault Type CB Coupe de Ville belonging to William Carter, who had purchased the vehicle in Europe and was having it shipped back to New York. The Carters all survived the sinking, but the car, if it has survived a century underwater, is [[{{Understatement}} more likely than not]] TheAllegedCar now. * ConspiracyTheory: A mild one crops up about the California: the most commonly accepted story is that the ship's radio operator had turned in for the night and the distress flares were taken by witnesses as celebratory fireworks. However rumors abound of a mysterious third ship in between the Titanic and the California. Reality suggests this is either a trick of the light and an illusion or there was a third ship, possibly the Norwegian sealer Samson there illegally or the SS Mount Temple but records debate this idea. Other more sinister theories abound; a ghost ship, the wrath of God for the aforementioned BlasphemusBoast, a cursed car on board already responsible for numerous deaths.* CreatorKiller: ** Bruce Ismay was one of the men who boarded a lifeboat and survived the sinking. The reputation he earned for not going down with the ship claimed his long career with White Star within a year, and he lived the rest of his life a recluse. ** Thomas Andrews, ''Titanic's'' designer, died during the sinking. In fact, all nine members of Harland of Wolff's Guarantee Group perished. ** The surviving officers, Charles Lightoller, Herbert Pitman, Joseph Boxhall and Harold Lowe, all found that their careers stalled as a result of their association with the ''Titanic''. None of them ever received a major command. ** As a matter of fact, the only really noteworthy crew member who both survived and did not get shamed for surviving was the ship's chief baker, Charles Joughin, who also was responsible for sending loaves of bread as provisions for the lifeboats with his baking staff; he is technically considered to be the final passenger of the ''Titanic'' to disembark the ship (by way of riding the stern down in the final plunge; the ship fully submerged into the water under his feet, thereby forcing him off it). He spent a good chunk of time in the freezing water until he found Collapsible B and hung onto the overturned boat until he and the other 5 people on it were rescued. He was heavily drunk for the final stages of the sinking, yet the alcohol actually gave him the ability to survive the freezing cold ([[SaintBernardRescue it should have]] [[JustForFun/TropesExaminedByTheMythbusters done the opposite]]), and he spent the rest of the night on the sea before being rescued by a lifeboat and taken to the ''Carpathia'' in the morning. This rather odd story about how he both stayed aboard and survived the whole ordeal more or less gave him immunity from the shame, and he lived to 1956.** Averted, surprisingly, by the White Star Line. Despite the hit it took with the loss of the ''Titanic'' (financial and reputation), White Star remained a successful and profitable business throughout the 1920s. They still had the old reliable ''Olympic'' and, as part of Germany's war reparations, in 1920 they were given the largest passenger ship in the world, the Hamburg-America line's ''Bismarck'' (renamed ''Majestic'' by White Star), as recompense for the loss of the third ''Olympic''-class sister ''Britannic'', which had been used as a hospital ship in the First World War and sunk after striking an underwater mine in 1916. What really finished off White Star was the tightening of US immigration laws, depriving the company of its main source of income, and subsequently the Great Depression, leading to its merger with Cunard (which was also struggling for the same reasons) in 1934. What exists of White Star now is part of the Carnival Cruise Corporation, who are the current owners of Cunard (along with Costa Cruises, who would be involved in another historic maritime disaster with the ''Concordia'' in 2012, only a few months before the centenary of ''Titanic''.)** Stanley Lord, the captain of the ''Californian'', was fired with prejudice from his line that August after he did not respond to the ''Titanic's'' sinking.[[note]]Lord did not ''know'' the ''Titanic'' was sinking. He was on another ship several miles away and only knew that his crew had seen some rockets[[/note]] Neither he nor any of his crew were ever criminally charged for ignoring the rockets and wireless telegraphs[[note]]The ''Californian'' crew did not actually ignore any wireless telegraphs. This was in the days before a ship's wireless had to be manned 24 hours, and the ''Californian'''s sole wireless operator had already turned in for the night before the ''Titanic'' struck the iceberg; this, of course, was the disaster that prompted people to put an end to these practices in the first place.[[/note]], but the mess still turned him into a hated man. He joined a different company and worked there until 1927, but his career and reputation were forever stained. Probably a case of HistoricalVillainUpgrade and a great irony that a captain who prudently stopped his ship for the night after encountering heavy ice and delivered his crew and cargo safely to port should end up being vilified.** The ''Carpathia'' was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat during its military service in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. While she could have been at the wrong place at the wrong time, her crew reported that they had seen U-boats stalking the ship before the sinking. It's been rumored since the sinking that the Germans [[FamedInStory wanted her sunk due to her famous role]] in the sinking of the ''Titanic''. Since documents from the German side were lost, we'll never know for sure. ** Averted with the actual builders of the ship, Harland and Wolff, who continued to build ocean liners for decades until the jet airplane made it considerably easier to get around the globe. H&W are still in operation in the 21st century, today focusing on building off-shore wind farms.* DatedHistory:** For many years, it was widely believed that ''Titanic'' sank intact. The discovery of the wreck in two main pieces almost half a mile apart proved beyond any doubt that the ship broke apart during the sinking. ** A popular myth was that the iceberg ripped a 300ft gash in the ship's hull. Despite Harland & Wolff's best naval architects discrediting this, as each compartment had a separate pattern of flooding, it remained a leading explanation. It was finally disproven in the 90s when sonar scans were able to accurately determine the damage. ** For decades, ''Titanic'' was assumed to have foundered at or near its last transmitted distress position. The wreck was actually discovered some 13 miles away, which is why it had been so difficult to locate.** How the ship actually sank was also debunked multiple times since the wreck's discovery. Mainly, the ship broke apart at a lower angle than people once believed, she split up between the second and third funnels, not the third and fourth, she had slight port and starboard lists from pump activity, and the stern didn't sink completely vertical. This makes the James Cameron film a bit historically inaccurate today. Cameron himself, after performing further study in 2012, jokes that he has to remake the film. Compare these Titanic sinking demonstrations from [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtP4NXITCDw 1995]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSGeskFzE0s 2012.]]* DeathOfAChild: The tragic story of little Sidney Leslie Goodwin, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Leslie_Goodwin Aged 19 months.]]* DirtyCoward: If you were a man, and you survived, then chances were you'd face this accusation. Bruce Ismay never lived it down, and after leaving the White Star Line the year after the sinking, spent the rest of his life as a recluse. One major exception was the ship's baker, Charles Joughin, mostly due to the CrazyAwesome way he survived (See CreatorKiller above).* DistressCall:** One of the first major disasters in which radio played a key role, and also one of the earliest to use the newly established SOS distress signal as well.** Additionally the ship fired a number of distress rockets. Unfortunately, as you will see below, ambiguity and [[PoorCommunicationKills deadly poor communication standards]] were rampant when it came to these:*** One account holds that ''Californian'' captain Lord apparently was of the opinion that the rockets/flares were company-specific signals that carried no connotations of distress.*** Another possible explanation for Lord ignoring the flares is that they were white, not red. The flares were supposed to be changed to red for emergencies. Luxury liners would often fire the rockets during parties, a practice which was stopped after this incident to avoid confusion. *** Finally, at least two other ships in the vicinity fired rockets that night, neither of which was in distress: the ''Carpathia'' (to let those aboard ''Titanic'' know that help was en route), and also the ''Almerian'', which was attempting to signal a ship in the distance. For rockets to be a signal of distress, they were required to be fired at "regular intervals". It is also unclear how many rockets Lord was informed about by his crew before the ship firing them (in their view) steamed away. * DisguisedInDrag: Rumors and stories abound of male passengers and crew doing just this, choosing pragmatic survival over heroic sacrifice. Of course, it ''could'' have happened as advertised - A sinking ship is not exactly a situation where one pays ''that'' much attention. However, it appears to be a misrepresentation of a real incident: As mentioned elsewhere, Lightoller had a Zero Tolerance policy of men boarding the boats on his side (to the point of ordering 12 stokers out of a boat at gunpoint), and teenage boys ran the risk of being forced to stay behind if they were YoungerThanTheyLook. There was a family traveling whose son was 13, but was tall enough to be confused for being older. His mother was GenreSavvy enough to know that Lightoller would not believe her if she insisted that he was still a boy. Therefore, she put her shawl around him and told the lad to keep quiet and not look anyone in the face.* DrivenToSuicide: Several survivors reported that an officer shot himself just before the final plunge. The identity of this officer has never been confirmed (if indeed it happened at all), but Captain Smith, Chief Officer Wilde, First Officer Murdoch and (less plausibly) Chief Engineer Bell have all been suggested. The Cameron movie and the 1996 miniseries both depicted Murdoch shooting a passenger, then himself, much to the ire of his relatives, who are adamant that he died a hero. A 20th Century Fox executive subsequently visited Murdoch's hometown to apologize for any offence caused and made a donation to a local school. * EndOfAnEra: The sinking is viewed as the moment UsefulNotes/{{the Edwardian Era}} died: the faith in man's engineering achievements making wonders. Also foreshadows the coming of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI during which the masses were killed over the seeming arrogance of the upper classes.* EvenBetterSequel: In-universe with the ''Olympic'' class fleet. The ''Olympic'' being the first ship was the guinea pig and experiences by the passengers and crew were noted and added as improvements to the designs of ''Titanic'' and ''Britannic''. ''Olympic's'' A Deck promenade was fully opened while ''Titanic's'' was enclosed on some areas because the deck was uncomfortable on days with strong winds. ''Olympic'' also had a promenade on B Deck, but this was deleted from ''Titanic'' due to low use, as a result the B promenade was replaced with larger First Class cabins and an additional restaurant. After the ''Titanic'' disaster, many safety features were added to ''Britannic'' including larger crane-like davits that can lower lifeboats further out in the event of a list, obviously she was fitted with many more lifeboats than ''Titanic''. Britannic was also designed to have better accommodations on all classes including additional rooms and lounges for entertainment. Despite these perks, both ships ended up sinking with little to no passenger service. Making the original ''Olympic'' an example of FirstInstallmentWins.* ExactTimeToFailure: Played straight and averted. Thomas Andrews gave the ship another 90 minutes when he saw the damage done, but the ship lasted a whole 2 hours 40 minutes.* ExactWords: The aforementioned British Board of Trade Regulations concerning lifeboats and ship sizes. It was only after the disaster that they were changed to the much more inclusive "enough lifeboats for all aboard."* ExplosiveOverclocking: That ''Carpathia'' avoided a catastrophic boiler explosion was a miracle. She was traveling at 2 knots (2.31 mph) faster than her rated maximum speed, which she had not even sailed at since her sea trials a decade earlier. In an apocryphal story, an engineer when asked by one of his mates by [[TimTaylorTechnology how much they were pushing the boilers]], responded by putting his hat over the steam gauge to obscure the dangerous boiler overpressure.* FaceDeathWithDignity: The ''Titanic'' offered a wealth of examples:** The unseen engineers who fought with might and main to save their ship and had they not been undone from the beginning by the sheer extent of the damage may have succeeded. They bought two and a half hours of electrical and light service for the sinking ship and over an hour of life beyond Andrews' initial estimate for her crew and passengers. Only sixty of a complement of 375 engineers, stokers, trimmers, greasers, and other assorted engineers made it out alive.** Fr. Thomas Byles, a Catholic priest who surrendered a station in a lifeboat early on and went to free many from the complicated warrens of the third-class berthing spaces. He was reported as last seen leading a group of terrified, presumably third-class passengers in praying the rosary, hearing confessions and giving absolution among those trapped on the stern. His body was never recovered or, if recovered, never identified.** There are many stories of fathers leaving their wives and children in the boats, and stepping back so that others may have a seat.** Benjamin Guggenheim, who when he realised that escape was no longer an option returned to his cabin to change into his finest clothing. He handed a note to a survivor that stated, "Dressed in our best, going down like gentlemen". Guggenheim and his valet Victor Giglio were last seen seated in deck chairs in the Staircase sipping brandy and [[OneLastSmoke smoking cigars]].** John Jacob Astor helped his pregnant young wife into a lifeboat, but was denied entry himself. He simply stood back, lit a cigarette and waved goodbye.** The Strauses: Ida was granted a seat in a lifeboat, but the officer in charge initially refused Isidor entry. This prompted Ida to give her seat up to remain with her husband. The officer relented and said that nobody would really object "an elderly gentleman" like Isidor taking a seat in the lifeboat, but he insisted that he would not leave the ship before the other men. Isidor tried to convince Ida to get back on the lifeboat, but she only responded, "We have lived together for many years. Where you go, I go." They both perished in the sinking.** A notorious subversion is J. Bruce Ismay, owner of the White Star Line, who climbed aboard the very last lifeboat and survived. He was pilloried for his actions which were seen as an act of [[DirtyCoward supreme cowardice]] (though he got in the lifeboat after he had helped with the loading and lowering of several others and only when he was sure that no women were in the vicinity) and he was never welcome in polite society again.** Senior Marconi Operator Jack Phillips stayed at his post and continued to key out his distress call even as the fading power made the radio inoperable. The (equally heroic but somewhat more fortunate) junior operator Harold Bride had this to say about him:---> The water was pretty close up to the boat deck. There was a great scramble aft and how poor Phillips worked through it I'll never know. I learned to love him that night, I suddenly felt for him a great reverence. To see him there, sticking to his work while everyone else was raging about, I'll never live to forget the work Phillips did in those last 15 minutes.** The ship's musicians played music to calm the passengers as the life boats were loaded and didn't stop until they had died. One eyewitness account said:--->Many brave things were done that night, but none were more brave than those done by men playing minute after minute as the ship settled quietly lower and lower in the sea. The music they played served alike as their own immortal requiem and their right to be recalled on the scrolls of undying fame.* FailedASpotCheck: Two quartermasters called the bridge to report that they had sighted lifeboats departing the ship. They weren't informed of the emergency. * ForWantOfANail: One of the bridge officers had been fired shortly before the ''Titanic'' sailed and accidentally (or purposefully; who knows?) took the key for the locker containing the lookouts' binoculars with him. With binoculars, the iceberg would probably have been detected early enough for the ship to miss it completely. This meant the lookouts were forced to rely on their vision alone, on a moonless night no less, though [[InSpiteOfANail it is doubtful that binoculars would have made much difference]], given the moonless night and the flat calm sea. Furthermore, lookouts were trained to look out with the naked eye, since binoculars greatly narrow one's field of vision, and would only be used to inspect an obstacle once it had been sighted. Ernest Shackleton was called as an expert witness at the British inquiry, and he echoed this viewpoint. * GodNeverSaidThat: ** No official source from either Harland and Wolf or the White Star Line ''ever'' called ''Titanic'' or her sisters "unsinkable." When talking about the safety features of the ship, it was stated that all the usual expected causes for accidents at sea (or more accurately, near a port and thus ''not'' at full speed) had been considered and countered with structural features to take them into account:*** Grounding: The double-bottom hull will keep the water out of the main hull.*** Hitting something: The first four compartments can flood and the ship would not be in danger, when usually the worst damage would be the first two compartments flooding.*** Being hit ''by'' something: Worst case scenario was being hit right at a bulkhead, resulting in two compartments flooding. ''Titanic'' and her sisters could take such a hit and still have watertight bulkhead space above the waterline. Three in ridiculously favorable conditions. This actually happened to ''Olympic'' when she got rammed by HMS ''Hawke'' at the junction of 2 compartments. Both flooded, but the ship remained stable and was able to limp back to Harland and Wolff under her own power. This was seen as a validation of the watertight compartment system at the time. In the wake of ''Titanic'', the bulkheads were extended further up the sister ships to allow at least one more compartment to flood safely (this wasn't enough to save the ''Britannic'' when her watertight doors malfunctioned).** What happened was a shipbuilder's trade magazine listed these features and wrote "Practically Unsinkable." The press got word of that and gleefully 'forgot' about the "practically" part and just said "Unsinkable."* GoingDownWithTheShip: Captain Smith. There's some speculation to how he died according to different survivor testimonies but most believed they last saw him in the ship's wheelhouse and stayed there until the bridge flooded and drowned.** Thomas Andrews, the ship's designer, also stayed aboard as ''Titanic'' sank. Most stories say that he was last seen in the First Class smoking room, in the midst of a HeroicBSOD.** Averted by J. Bruce Ismay, who escaped the sinking and became the object of scorn and derision as a result. Whether Ismay was really a DirtyCoward who saved his own neck as other more deserving people drowned, or whether he was just in a fortunate position that he took full advantage of to reduce the body count by one is a call that's pretty much up to each individual, but the fact that he survived when his captain did not made him an easy target. William Randolph Hearst, a man Ismay had a long standing feud with, had a field day [[OldMediaAreEvil raking his reputation through the muck]], and Ben Hecht wrote an [[TakeThat utterly scathing poem]] on the topic of Ismay's survival; see the [[Quotes/RMSTitanic Quotes page]] for the full text. ** Most of the prominent members of the ship's other departments also died that day, including the Chief Steward, the Chief Engineer, the Purser, the Senior Wireless Operator, all but three of the Stoking Foremen, and even the owner of the onboard restaurant.** Famously, Wallace Hartley and the band played one last tune right as the boat deck started to go under. Like many things about ''Titanic'', there is some dispute about the final song played by the band. Radioman Harold Bride remembered the gentle tune "[[https://youtu.be/g73kOrhAai4 Autumn]]", written by Archie Joyce, "England's waltz king", as the last song. However, others thought it was the similar-sounding hymn "Nearer My God To Thee". * HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee: The sinking resulted in two public inquiries, a US senator-chaired American one and a British Board of Trade one. As it turned out, they proved rather complementary with the US one focusing on ''what'' happened while the UK one focused on ''why.''* HellIsThatNoise: [[TruthInTelevision As depicted in the]] [[Film/Titanic1997 1997 adaptation]], survivors reported beyond the screams of the people in the water, they could hear the metallic groaning of the ship as it sunk further and further into the water. Despite the darkness, [[NightmareFuel the passengers in the lifeboats could hear the Titanic as if she were in agony]], [[FromBadToWorse especially when she broke her back]] and sank faster. [[NothingIsScarier Things only got more terrifying when the silence came...]]* HeroicBSOD: ** Captain Edward John Smith, beloved "Millionaire's Captain" of the White Star Line, 40 years experience at sea. After the order was given to launch the lifeboats, he was reported to have been detached and in a haze, leaving his officers to carry out the evacuation.*** While he had 40 years experience, he never encountered a serious emergency in his career, and, moreover, much of his career was reportedly spent on ''sailing'' ships, with only infrequent steamship voyages. He described his own experience of life at sea as "uneventful" in an interview, and the worst event he was ever involved in before ''Titanic'' was the collision between ''Olympic'' and ''HMS Hawke'' a few months earlier. Faced with the prospect of a very real disaster unfolding on his watch (and his own impending death), he simply shut down. Just because you've been at sea a long time doesn't really mean you're experienced. ** Bruce Ismay in the aftermath of the sinking. On the ''Carpathia'', he remained confined to his cabin and was reportedly sedated by the ship's doctor. * HeroOfAnotherStory: ** ''RMS Olympic'': Known as "Old Reliable". She served White Star until the merger with Cunard in 1934, covering millions of miles over 257 voyages, served as a troop transport in WWI, was the only merchant ship to ever sink a U-Boat in 1917 (by ''[[RammingAlwaysWorks running it over]]'', no less), and at the outbreak of the war helped rescue the sailors of the mined ''HMS Audacious''. She was also one of the ships that rushed to help ''Titanic'' during the sinking, but was '''''way''''' too far away, still over 100 miles away by the time ''Carpathia'' finished rescuing all the survivors. Her captain then offered to lighten the overcrowded ''Carpathia'''s load by taking in the survivors, but [[HaHaHaNo was "heatedly turned down"]] by captain Rostron. There was the difficulty in transferring passengers between ships, of course, but Rostron had another major difficulty in mind: from anywhere but close, ''Olympic'' was a spitting image of ''Titanic'', and the survivors of the latter's sinking would likely panic at the sight of what they thought was a [[GhostShip ghost of the ship they just saw die]].** Second Officer Charles Lightoller, who had a colorful career outside of ''Titanic''. During UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, a ship he was in command of successfully rammed and sunk a German U-Boat, earning him the Distinguished Service Cross. And in the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Second World War]], Lightoller's private motorboat was one of the "little ships" which participated in the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Army which was trapped at Dunkirk. Lightoller personally piloted the vessel across the English Channel and back, and brought home 130 British soldiers. * HeroicSacrifice: The engineers stayed below decks, struggling to maintain power vital for the electric lights, the pumps working against the flood, and most importantly the Marconi Wireless, right up to the very end, and by then there was no hope to escape.** In a lesser way, the band. They kept playing as long as they could in order to keep the passengers calm and entertained as the worst was happening. [[TearJerker There was also nothing else they could do]].** All five of the ship's postal workers tried to save the enormous quantities of mail before they were overcome and drowned early in the sinking.** Thomas Andrews did what he could to help with the evacuation. Initially, the last reported sighting of him was at 1:40 AM in the first class smoking room, waiting for the ship to go down, but new evidence suggested that he was on the boat deck after 2:00 AM, throwing deck chairs into the ocean for survivors to use as flotation devices, and continued assisting until the very end. ** Isidor and Ida Straus, who had easily secured lifeboat positions on account of their age, refused to leave for the same reason, not wanting to take an opportunity denied to younger people.* HonorBeforeReason: Averted with Hosono Masabumi, the ship's only Japanese passenger. As Lifeboat 10 was lowered, an officer said there was room for two more. Hosono saw another man jump in and soon followed. Like Ismay, he became a pariah in Japan afterwards for surviving in this manner. * HopeSpot:** When the stern broke off and became level with the waterline, those who could see it thought it would remain afloat long enough for help to arrive. There were several reported cries of "It's a miracle! The men are saved!"** The flooding of Boiler Room 5 was, for a while, contained to the point that the stokers and firemen were able to pump all the water out. Alas, unfortunately the coal bunker wall (as the damage stretched through the coal bunkers fore and aft of the bulkhead separating Boiler Rooms 5 and 6) was not designed to contain the might of the Atlantic, and thus collapsed from the weight of the water on the other side, and sealed the ship's fate. [[DoomedToFailure This wouldn't have been able to save the ship anyway though, what with there being five other compartments flooding.]]** William Murdoch as well. ''Titanic'' was to be his first ship to be Chief Officer of, after years floundering at the First Officer position. Then, at the last minute, Captain Smith requests Henry Tingle Wilde, his Chief Officer from ''Olympic'' and earlier commands, to be shuffled onto ''Titanic''. The phrase "gut punch" comes to mind.* HufflepuffHouse: Second-class passengers, of which ''Titanic'' was carrying 272, are almost entirely ignored in most depictions of the disaster, seemingly lacking the glamour of the first-class and romanticism of the third. In fact third-class males were ''twice'' as likely to survive as second-class males. A partial exception are the members of ''Titanic'''s orchestra who were technically listed as second-class passengers rather than members of the crew.* IgnoredAesop: ** Averted. After the disaster, there were two enquiries about what happened (one British and one American), and maritime rules were hastily amended to remove the flaws that made the ''Titanic'' such a disaster. Henceforth all passenger ships had to carry enough lifeboats for everyone aboard (The ''Titanic'' famously didn't[[note]]though in her defense, she was carrying ''more'' lifeboats than she was required to at the time[[/note]]) and all had to have wireless manned 24 hours a day (The ''Titanic'' itself did, but the two closest ships, the ''Californian'' and the ''Carpathia'', didn't, which is part of the reason why the ''Californian'' didn't come to the rescue and the ''Carpathia'' only narrowly missed following suit). The status of rockets was clarified so that they would ''only'' signify distress (The ambiguity was part of the reason Captain Lord of the ''Californian'' didn't think the matter was as urgent as it actually was). And a North Atlantic ice patrol was created to track icebergs in the region and alert ships of their whereabouts. * ImprobableInfantSurvival: Played straight with the children from Second Class.* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Benjamin Guggenheim. His trip aboard the ''Titanic'' consisted largely of cheating on his wife with his mistress, but when the ship started to go down he made sure to save the female members of his party (including said mistress) and then decided to FaceDeathWithDignity, not wanting to take a place that would otherwise go to a woman or child.* LaserGuidedKarma: In a sense. The ''SS Californian'' and her crew faced plenty of scrutiny for their actions (or rather lack thereof) during the night of the disaster. On November 9, 1915, the ship was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Cape Matapan. While the ''RMS Carpathia'' suffered a similar fate, unlike her, the ''SS Californian'' remains undiscovered to this day. In addition, ''Californian'' sank in the same area as ''Titanic's'' sister ''Britannic''.* LastOfHisKind: Millvina Dean was the last survivor to pass away, having been two months old at the time. Lillian Asplund, five years old at the time, was the last survivor to actually have memories of the sinking. * LegendFadesToMyth: On account of the very confused nature of the tragedy itself and the media storm that occurred afterwards, there's a lot of myths and disputed facts surrounding the sinking, and nobody agrees on exactly what happened. ''Titanic'' had it all: conflicting witnesses, later embellishments, people not seeing the whole picture, and just plain mistakes, not to mention good old-fashioned fabrication. Several newspapers simply started making stories up when the scant information that existed in the period between the sinking and ''Carpathia's'' arrival in New York dried up, one paper printed "eyewitness accounts" that claimed passengers saw the iceberg an hour before the collision, that the ship almost capsized from the force of the collision, that the boilers exploded, flinging screaming passengers into the sea, etc etc... While most of the more outrageous stories were quickly debunked, some stories that have no real basis in fact no doubt survive to this day and are accepted as true because [[ArgumentumAdNauseam there isn't anybody left to assert otherwise]]:** Walter Lord encountered this while writing ''A Night to Remember''. He interviewed survivors who remembered ''Titanic'' having a tennis court, a golf course and even a herd of dairy cows.[[note]]The tennis court was actually a squash court, but the rest of those features never existed.[[/note]] Others claimed it was twice the size of ''Olympic''[[note]]It was actually only 1000 tonnes heavier and a mere three inches longer[[/note]] and that the so-called mystery ship nearby was so close that people could be seen moving on the deck.[[note]]The mystery ship would have been at least ten miles away, if not more, and appeared as a few lights on the horizon.[[/note]]* LifesavingMisfortune:** There are stories of potential steerage passengers who lost their tickets, thereby saving them. One man who was hired as a stoker had his workbook stolen; whoever took it more than likely perished. In addition, a number of wealthy individuals had booked passage on the ship but cancelled for whatever reason. This included chocolatier Milton Hershey and Alfred Vanderbilt. Sadly, Vanderbilt would later book passage on another doomed liner: RMS ''Lusitania''. He did not survive. ** It is often said that J.P. Morgan, the banker and financier who controlled International Mercantile Marine, White Star's ultimate parent company, also planned to be on board but made a late cancellation. However, this is probably an urban myth.[[note]]Morgan had already accepted an invitation to be in Venice on April 25 for the unveiling of St Mark's campanile (which he duly attended). It therefore would have been impractical for him to be in America on April 17, when he would have had to return to Europe almost immediately for his planned visit to Venice. Moreover, Morgan's habit was to remain in Europe for the first half of the year, before returning to America after June.[[/note]]*** As one article quipped, "there were more people that survived by missing the boat than were on the ship!"* MeaningfulName: The first two ships of the ''Olympic'' Class were named after generations of gods from Myth/ClassicalMythology:** ''Olympic'' was named after the Olympians (Zeus, Hera, Hades, that group).** ''Titanic'' after the preceding generation, the Titans (Cronos, Rheia, Iapetos, them), the children of Gaia and Ouranos, thus leading to a spooky coincidence in that the Titans were imprisoned in the deepest, darkest depths of Tartarus for all eternity and ''Titanic''... Sank into the deepest, darkest depths of the Atlantic Ocean for all eternity...** ''Britannic'' was twofold -- Firstly after Britannia, the AnthropomorphicPersonification of Britain, and after... ''Britannic'', one of White Star's first and most beloved liners. DeadGuyJunior as applied to ships one could say.*** Britannic's name was used again for a modern diesel-powered vessel. She was the penultimate ship built new for the White Star Line before their merger with Cunard, the final one being her younger sister the MV Georgic.*** There is an urban legend that ''Britannic'' was originally to be named ''Gigantic'' after the Giants, the another group of children of Gaia, and that the name was quickly changed after the loss of ''Titanic'' for fears it was too soon to have such an arrogant-sounding name. There ''are'' a few records in H&W listing Hull 433 as "Gigantic," however, the name was a common name popular amongst the workers of the yard for a name for a White Star liner. * MenAreTheExpendableGender: A "women and children first" policy was operated as the lifeboats were being loaded. As a result, 74% of the women aboard ''Titanic'' survived, compared with only 20% of the men. * MiddleChildSyndrome: {{Inverted|Trope}}. ''Titanic'' is the most [in]famous ship in all of history, while the First Child ''Olympic'' is reduced to a glorified footnote (in spite of her 23-year service record and war hero status in sinking a U-Boat and saving the crew of the ''HMS Audacious''), and the Baby ''Britannic'', while talked about, is not mentioned nearly as much as ''Titanic'', despite having completed five voyages to Greece and back as a hospital ship in WWI before struck a mine in 1916 and sinking itself, having never carried a single paying customer.* AMillionIsAStatistic: The death toll was just over 1,500 men, women, and children. Even though there are whole towns on both sides of the Atlantic that are smaller than that, it's hard to picture that many dead bodies bobbing in the sea, until you read up on some of the victims, especially the more unknown individuals.* MissedHimByThatMuch:** As ''Titanic'' was leaving Southampton, its powerful suction pulled a nearby vessel, the ''SS City of New York'', from its moorings and towards the bigger ship. A collision was narrowly averted when Captain Smith ordered ''Titanic'''s port propeller into reverse; the resulting wash pushed the ''New York'' away from ''Titanic'', allowing several tugs to maneuver the ''New York'' out of harm's away. Strangely, despite the drama and clearly ominous nature of the incident, it is usually omitted from dramatizations of the disaster. ** After being rudely told off by Jack Phillips, the ''Californian's'' wirelessly operator, Cyril Evans, continued working for a little while longer before finally shutting down the wireless system, less than an hour before ''Titanic's'' first wireless signal went out.** Narrowly averted by Harold Cottam, the wireless operator on the ''Carpathia''. He was just about to shut down for the night and go to bed when he heard ''Titanic's'' distress call. * NeverMyFault: Captain Stanley Lord of the ''Californian'' for the rest of his life kept swearing furiously up and down that he did nothing wrong that night, even though his crew were thoroughly cornered into admitting in cross-examination during the inquiries that they ignored obvious distress signal rockets from a ship which all evidence points to have been the ''Titanic''.** One theory proposes that, due to unusual atmospheric conditions, Lord mistook the ''Titanic'' for the "Mystery Ship" the ''Titanic'' saw. The theory's sequence of events goes like this: Captain Lord sees the Mystery Ship, which he doesn't think is the ''Titanic'' (the clarity of its lights made it look like a 400-foot ship 5 miles away instead of an 800-foot ship 10 miles away). He asks the wireless operator about ships in their wireless range, but is informed that the only ship within range is the ''Titanic'' (because that ship actually was the ''Titanic''). Lord, having already made the wrong assumption that the ship he could see wasn't the ''Titanic'', made a second wrong assumption: The ship didn't have wireless. He attempted to communicate with morse lamps, but fails due to the ten-mile distance between the ships. Later, when the distress rockets are fired, the same atmospheric conditions that made the ''Titanic'' look like the mystery ship made the rockets look like they were farther on the horizon than they really were. Captain Lord does see the rockets, but he thinks that if they were distress rockets and were fired from the ship that he could see, they were being fired from a stranger that didn't have wireless and ignored his attempts at morse code. Given those circumstances, he decided that whatever it was could wait until morning. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the ship was indeed the ''Titanic'' and its matter couldn't wait until morning- the ship sunk in a couple of hours.* NoOSHACompliance: Several problems the ''Titanic'' had, most notably the lack of enough lifeboats for all the passengers (and never having lifeboat drills), make it look like this to modern eyes. In fact, ''Titanic'' was compliant with all applicable maritime safety laws; as pointed out elsewhere, the disaster is what prompted the overhaul to begin with. These laws were last updated in 1894 and had failed to keep pace with the large increase in the size of passenger ships since then.[[note]]As a British registered vessel, ''Titanic'' fell under the auspices of the British Merchant Shipping Act, although American and German regulations were equally lax[[/note]] The rules did not stipulate that there should be enough lifeboats to accommodate everyone aboard, but only that any ship weighing more than 10,000 tonnes (''Titanic'' weighed 46,000 tonnes) was required to carry sixteen lifeboats with a total capacity of 9,625 cubic feet (enough for about 900 people). Titanic had all that, plus an extra 4 collapsible lifeboats, making it ''safer'' than it was supposed to be- just not safe enough.* ThePerfectionist: Thomas Andrews was described as this. He spent much of the voyage making notes on various cosmetic changes he felt were needed, on top of his duties as leader of The Guarantee Group, a gang of six H&W yard workers to take the maiden voyage to find and correct any unforeseen faults in the ship.* RammingAlwaysWorks: Many have suggested that had Officer Murdoch just kept going straight, the ship would have survived. While [[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B0CE1DC1738E033A25752C1A9619C946697D6CF certain ships had survived head-on collisions with icebergs in the past]] the Titanic's unprecedented size made it a different beast, and as such ramming the berg could have produced even more disastrous results for the vessel. The reasons for why this DefiedTrope is also an AvertedTrope are thus:## The ships that have been cited as having survived a head-on collision with an iceberg were all either much smaller in mass than ''Titanic'', moving much slower than ''Titanic'', or some combination of the two. As a thought experiment, imagine a minivan hitting a reinforced cement bridge support at 30 mph. Violent, but a reasonable chance for survival with something resembling a car afterward. Now, imagine a fully loaded 18-wheeler hitting that same support at ''60'' mph. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSPjC1Ek7vA Not a pretty sight, is it?]] Furthermore, they don't take into account that modern ships are welded together, whereas ''Titanic'' was held together by rivets. Had ''Titanic'' hit the iceberg as suggested, the whole ship would have [[AccordionMan folded like an accordion]], opening the seams of the plates from stem to stern, resulting in the ship sinking in minutes, rather than hours.## The front end of the bow was not a battering ram loaded with nothing more than cargo that would regrettably be destroyed but covered by insurance. The bunks for the firemen for the boilers were in there, loaded up with the hundreds of men off-shift and asleep, in addition to the single males of third-class being berthed in the front end. Even if by some miracle ''Titanic'' survived, William Murdoch would have been tried for mass manslaughter and seen as the most incompetent sailor ever put in charge of a ship for all time.## Besides the fact that any competent sailor would act to prevent his vessel colliding with an obstacle, advocates of the head-on collision theory overlook that due to Murdoch's manoeuvre the ''Titanic'' came very close to evading the iceberg altogether. ## Lastly, many shipbuilding experts and engineers say that the Titanic would have had so much momentum from her size and speed that the inertial forces caused by an instantaneous stop from a head-on collision could have ripped the engines of the Titanic completely free of their bases, causing them to probably tear completely through the hull. The resultant damage (several large holes open to the sea, each the size of a school bus) would have caused the Titanic to go down in seconds with probably all hands being lost. Anyone who escaped the boat would have either drowned or died of hypothermia in minutes. [[CruelAndUnusualDeath To say nothing of the scaldings produced by steam pipes rupturing.]]* {{Retirony}}: ** There is a persistent myth that Captain Smith planned on retiring after the ''Titanic'' returned to England. Most depictions of the sinking include this claim, but there's little evidence to substantiate it. Some comments were made that Smith was going to retain command of ''Titanic'' and then retire after ''Britannic'' launched in 1915. ** A variation with Wallace Hartley, the bandleader. He had recently proposed to his fiancée, and although he was hesitant to leave her so soon, he signed on for entertaining on ''Titanic'' in the hope that it would provide potential contacts for future work. * SquareCubeLaw: ''Titanic'' and giant liners were built in part to exploit a variant of this concept. The bigger a ship is, the less proportional area has to be dedicated to things like machinery and coal spaces. A liner with double the displacement of another vessel could hold several times as many passengers and was typically several times more profitable. This is also why she didn't have enough lifeboats (if / ''when'' she had more boats than required). Laws of the time required lifeboats based on the tonnage of the ship rather than passenger capacity, and those laws were made using calculations on much smaller and less efficient ships. * SurvivorGuilt: A number of survivors would later regret not even trying to go back and save some of the victims in the water. Doing so would have been suicide mind you, what with 1,000+ people trying to get into boats with only a couple hundred total seats vacant, but that's psychology for you.* TemptingFate: On the maiden voyage of the ''RMS Adriatic'', one of the Big Four (White Star's major Ocean Liner project before the ''Olympic''-Class) in 1907, Captain Smith gave this quote to the press concerning ship safety:-->''"I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that..."''** Describing a large floating piece of metal as 'unsinkable' practically defines this trope. Although the makers themselves [[BeamMeUpScotty never actually made the claim directly]] (the phrase they used was 'virtually unsinkable', which is still this to a degree), newspapers of the day were fond of trumpeting the line that 'God himself could not sink this ship'. Perhaps God thought they needed a lesson in humility.** Thomas Andrews, the head designer, remarked to a friend that ''Titanic'' was "as nearly perfect as [[HumansAreFlawed human brains]] can make her." He said this on April 14th, only a few hours before the sinking.* TimTaylorTechnology: Courtesy of how steam engines run:** When Captain Rostron of the ''Carpathia'' learned that the ''Titanic'' was in trouble, he immediately ordered all available power diverted to the propellers. Chief Engineer Johnston accomplished this by shutting off steam, hot water, and electricity to non-essential portions of the ship. Every available fireman began shoveling coal into the boiler furnaces as if their own lives depended on it, and all the steam pressure safety valves [[ExplosiveOverclocking were closed off]]. ''Carpathia's'' fastest rated speed was 14 knots (16 mph), [[WhatAPieceOfJunk and her engines were already 10 years old and due for an overhaul...]] but she was coaxed up to [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome 17.5 knots (20.1 mph) that fateful night]], shaving nearly an hour off her mad dash to the sinking ''Titanic''. The engines of the ''Carpathia'' [[HeroicRROD would never achieve that speed again]] over the course of her life.** Adding to the awesome, one of the engineers put his hat over the gauge showing the steam pressure when it was pointed out how much they were pushing it. If they couldn't see how dangerously high above maximum safe level the pressure was, ''they didn't have to worry about it.''** So the story goes, ''Carpathia'' and her crew were moving with such feverish intensity, that the passengers began to believe that the ship must be on fire and dashing towards hell. ** A more mundane explanation for ''Carpathia's'' remarkable speed is that ''Titanic'' was actually 13 miles east of her distress position (something only discovered when the wreck was located in 1985) and hence somewhat nearer ''Carpathia'' than everyone thought. Rostron was not expecting to see the first lifeboat when he did, and just assumed they had covered the 58 miles in that time. * TogetherInDeath: Isidor Straus, one of the early owners of Macy's Department Store, and his wife Ida. She was offered a seat in a boat, but refused to leave her husband. When Isidor was offered a place, as "no one would object to an older gentleman having a place," he declined, [[HonorBeforeReason not desiring an opportunity not given to every other man]]. Subverted in that [[TearJerker only Isidor's body was recovered and identified.]]* UnderwaterRuins: ''Titanic'' herself, but especially the bow section. [=ROVs=] have been sent into the deepest parts of the ship and have found chandeliers still hanging from the ceiling, used drinking glasses still on their shelves, windows in the reception room completely whole, and tile from the Turkish bath (think sauna) still in place and retaining their vibrant colors.* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: For the Passenger Trade for emergencies: With the advent of wireless, and the fact that most incidents happen close to shore, it was common wisdom that other ships would be near enough to provide assistance, and that the lifeboats would be used to ferry passengers and crew from one ship to the other before the final plunge. And if it was out at sea, the North Atlantic was, and is, among the busiest shipping routes in the world, so it was inconceivable for there to be no one nearby. Shipbuilders just needed to make sure the ship could float long enough for help to arrive. In fact, just three years prior, this system worked out flawlessly with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Republic ''RMS Republic'']], which managed to linger for almost forty hours. What they didn't count on was what happened that night with the damage that occurred (see GodNeverSaidThat), and the fact that the nearest ship's radio was turned off for the night at the time of the disaster.* WellDoneSonGuy: [[http://www.williammurdoch.net/articles_12_Murdoch_family_tree.html William Murdoch.]] In his immediate family, his own father, two uncles, his grandfather and four great-uncles were captains, and here Will was, nearly forty, and he had hit a glass ceiling at First Officer. This is all speculation, but he may have felt pressured, in reality or not, to gain his own command.** Murdoch was originally picked to serve as Chief Officer, which is the actual executive officer. However, Captain Smith decided at the last minute to bring on Henry Wilde, his Chief Officer aboard ''Olympic'', for the position, which caused Murdoch and Lightoller to be demoted in position.* YouAreTooLate: Though among the heroes of the night, the ''Carpathia'' under Captain Rostron's arrived too late to save 1500 of those aboard ''Titanic''.* YouCantFightFate: In theory, the sinking of the ''Titanic'' specifically may have been avoidable. In practice, considering the nature of the Atlantic passenger business in 1912, a disaster of the same scale, if not worse, was basically doomed to happen -- regulations were too fast and loose, and there had not yet been a huge tragedy to set a precendent. It was really just a question of Which ship, When, Where, and How many people were going to die. Had things gone different, audiences might have seen the struggles of Jack and Rose to survive the sinking of the ''RMS Queen Mary'' or ''RMS Britannic''.[[/folder]]----